Repaint of a King Tiger

So I've been thinking about sprucing up my first build which is Tamiya's King Tiger Tank w/ Porsche Turret. I'm just not sure how far I want to go with it.. Do I just weather it with a sponge and add some pigments and a matte finish or do I strip it down (have never done that and would need advice on that... thats why i'm asking here) and do it all over.

I'm kind of leaning towards the doing it all over but i'm not sure how much stripping it down would take and would hate to get half way through it and find out it's just to much and be stuck with a messed up model.

Heres the side view of it. I used Creatix Airbrush acrylic paints for the base colors (which I will never ever use again.. horrible paints for modelling). I know I can get a much better look by even just adding some weathering. I also did not put a matte laquer finish on this build because I didn't have any yet when I built it (had yet to learn all the cool things about Klear).

Front view.

Left side.

Rear view.

So what's all your thought's on this. I'm really open to any suggestions before I jump into it.

Thanks as always,

Zerk.

Hi Zerk,

Personally if I was doing it I think I would just separate the hull and turret and scrape off any markings.

Then spray primer over the entire thing and start from there, rather than risk ruining it by trying to dissassemble it all.

It should be possible to repaint it with everything else in situ

SimonT

I agree with Simon, that is a nice kit but you will struggle to disassemble it! The alternative is to carefully add your weathering, scratches etc. if you have an air brush you could easily add say a dusty coat of flat earth to the wheels and fenders etc.

Will watch with interest and good luck.

Cheers

Dave

Thanks Simon and Dave for your ideas. I wasn't thinking of disassembling it, just stripping the paint off. I guess I could prime over what is already done just was worried about lose of definition.

Cheers!

Zerk.

Zerk

Caveat: I know nothing about AFVs. Could you not give it some matt and a bit of a weather without stripping the whole thing down? Might be easier to buy a new kit than go to extremes.

Cheers

Tim

So I decided to strip the paint off of my King Tiger. I used ISO and a green scratch pad which seemed to work really well, for those hard to reach places I used a toothpick to get the paint out. Luckly I used testors model glue for this build instead of CA and the parts I needed to come apart did so pretty easily.

Heres the body all stripped down. The holder for the jack on the back of the tank was getting a bit lose and was about to break so I decided to just make a new holder for the jack out of some metal scrap.

With those done I decided to put a Zimmerit coating on the tank that I really didn't feel I could do at the time I first put it together. So I went out and picked up a thing of Milliput today, first time using it and trying a Zimmerit coating and it works pretty well.

Here is what I was able to get done on it today. It does take awhile to put it on so I would suggest only mixing up a small amout of Milliput at a time since once its mixed the clock is running on before it drys.

This part was a whole lot harder then the side was to do. I used the rubber tipped modelling tools I have to kind of spread the clay around and kept it wet so it wouldn't rip. For the grooves I used the end of a small flat head screwdriver.

And here is a close up of the side of the body done in zimmerit. Overall I'm pretty happy with the outcome so far, I know the rear of the tank is going to be fun to work around.

I'm also going to take the time to add a few things into this build that I didn't know how to do when I first built it.

Cheers!

Zerk.

Question, does zimmerit get the same primer color as the rest of the tank or added after priming? And if added after primer what is its base color?

Thanks!

Zerk.

Hiya mate, love the fact that you are redoing the KT. Nice zimm work so far. As far as I know zimmerit didn't have the red primer color. It was kind of grey in shade if I'm not mistaken, a bit like concrete.

Cheers

Zerk

Brave man, best of luck. Great job with the Zim.

Cheers

Tim

Wouter - Thanks a bunch bud that helps out alot. Yeah I really like the KT but since it was my first build everytime I looked at it, it was kind of disapointing so figured what the heck... I have the time, lets fix it.

Tim - Thank you sir, the zim looks good.. but is a pain

So I was able to get most of the Zim done on it yesterday.

Just two sides left to go, not excitied about doing the rear of the tank.

Think the front came out pretty well.

And the other side and front of the turret are complete.

I decided to make new tow calbes for it as well since I really don't like the plastic ones (they look and scream super fake imo). So I used some hemp string (stolen from the wifes stash of jewelry making supplies. shhhh..) and cut a thin strip of scrap metal for the brace on the inside of the loop. I bent the metal around the end of a paint brush to form it. Once formed I measured the string looped it around and taped it off with a bit of tamiya masking tap to hold it's shape. Once held I used a bit of thin CA and accelerator to glue the string to the metal. I then used the masking tape to make the clamp holding the loop together and a bit of PVA over that to smooth it out.

And here is two sets of finished tow cables.

Should finish up with the zim today (wooot) and then get all the tid bits cleaned up and the rest of the parts for the tow cable holders built.

Cheers!

Zerk.